LOOKING FORWARD TO FLY

I don’t want you to think this is fancy, as, to be honest, I’m only going to Scotland in September, but this week I booked a flight with British Airways.

Well two actually; I’m hoping to come back. 

However, the good people at BA sent me a perplexing message:

“We look forward to flying with you, Mr Stubbs”

Wait. Am I flying the plane? They are looking forward to flying with me? Surely it should be me who’s looking forward to flying with them? While it’s a sort of childhood dream to be a pilot, I don’t think it would be helpful for it to come true now. I mean I’d need at least a couple of lessons.

The only thing they could mean I suppose, is that they are looking forward to flying the plane to Glasgow with me on it.

But that doesn’t make sense either does it? How do I add any value to flight BA1484? What have I got to bring to the party? It’s safer, certainly to get a trained pilot in the cockpit instead of a 43 year old technical author who once had a go at Microsoft Flight Simulator and ‘sort of liked it’. But is that pilot, his crew or his company, really looking forward to me, specifically me, being aboard a Boeing 737 for 55 minutes on a Thursday afternoon? Seems unlikely. Unless I’m supposed to do a song or a dance or a comedy turn while I’m up there.

No, the thing they’re really looking forward to, the only thing it could ever have been, is the fare that kerchings into the coffers and adds a tiny data point to their profits. I fill a seat - not with sparkling company or wit, and not the seat at the front in the cockpit - just a regular, economy seat, as anonymous as any other bod who booked that flight, with my bottom.

Air travel’s really lost its sparkle. I wish it didn’t feel so much like being on an expensive bus. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to it; I’m looking forward to flying with them, anonymously or not.